


Coping

by piningly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Promptfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 15:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piningly/pseuds/piningly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re teaching me how to fight, and I’m going to teach you how to not care.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coping

1.

Allison doesn’t know. That’s something that Lydia gets –understands—-feels in her skin and around her bones. She sits alone; pieces of whatever it is she’s using to cover up the cuts on her lips caused by biting too hard, stop her eyes from darting across the room to Scott’s, keep her fingers from trembling, scattered everywhere and it’s so easy to see that whatever façade she’s got going is going to break open, spill and rip her chest open in the sort of way that nobody should ever have to go through. It’s so obvious that she’s going to break, and Allison doesn’t know.

Her knuckles have bruises dusting the skin blue-purple; her shirt’s untucked. It’s 12:09pm with wind that’s not really wind ruffling her hair. There’s a fork in one of her hands and she’s looking at it like she doesn’t even know what it is. Does she understand what she’s done? Does she know what she’s going to do? Lydia hates the way that she cares. She loathes, abhors, can’t take the way that Allison’s not faking. Allison’s lost.

They’re all lost.

But not today.

“You’re teaching me how to fight,” Are the words that break the silence, cause the fork to clatter and eyes that are supposed to be brown turn a shade of almost black. The tray that could have fallen from her hands if she hadn’t been keeping them steady clicks down onto the table. Lydia’s pieces are firmly put together. Allison is like her, right now. She’s not supposed to be like her. She’s supposed to be better. Lydia chose her because of that. They’re all they have left.

Jackson doesn’t look at her the way he used to.

“You’re teaching me how to fight, and I’m going to teach you how to not care.”

2.

Allison places a bow into her hands. It’s heavy, like it means something. Lydia’s mind’s still full of half felt echoes and the whispers of words that she doesn’t understand, but the feeling of wood in her palm and the way it makes the girl in front of her stand taller is enough. It’s not easy to learn – she drops arrows and misses targets, but the string is tight. The parts fit in her arms. There’s a whole picture.

"It goes like this,” Brown hair, brown eyes, human and real lets her weapon do the work that her body can’t quite stretch to. She arcs and lets her defense fly, arms coming around Lydia, leaving searing brands across her skin, red marks along her neck and palms as she pushes and pushes and pushes until they have it right and can’t quite hear the wolves howling anymore. They fit together and work together until the thud of metal against wood doesn’t have the sound of clattering nothing afterwards. Lydia can use a bow because it goes like this and that’s something that she understands.

The pieces start to come together properly when they stop dropping them.

Allison puts a knife between her fingers. It’s cold, and the other girl cares. She cares so much that it hurts – that she can feel the bruises that weeks of training have pushed into her. Blade like ice, brown eyes closer to grey, “It goes like this.”

Lydia knows, and she doesn’t ask anymore, just lunges.

Allison doesn’t run away.

3.

They dance. Touches and bones that ache and sit hotly under their skins mark the time that passes. The two lunch trays become one with food that’s balanced as Allison walks over to the table that they call theirs. Lydia can hear the laughter of the boy who once loved her and she knows that Allison can see the easy smile Scott gives as he leans too close in return, but it doesn’t matter as much as it used to because their knees knock underneath cheap plastic, the Café only had one bottle of fruit juice and they’re starting to understand what things mean, now.

“Do you think they’re-,” Allison’s sandwich isn’t right. It’s two pieces of bread, green and pink and purple. Nothing about the Supernatural is right. Her last name is Silver and Lydia’s ex boyfriend is a werewolf. She still loves him. Allison still loves Scott. They still…

The taste of pineapple bursts across Lydia’s tongue before her fingers splay against their table.

“I think you shouldn’t worry,” She picks at her salad, Allison lifts their bottle to her lips with dark brown eyes and both hands. “I think that they don’t worry."

That’s a lie. They all worry. She’s got knee pads in her bag, Jackson’s old Lacrosse uniform and a hair tie that’s lucky because it’s hers and everything she owns is lucky if she says it is. Lydia remembers the feeling of leaves against bare skin and somebody else’s lips against hers. She hates it, wants to scrub herself clean. Sparring helps. Pretending helps.

Allison’s learning her body. Lydia’s learning what she promised herself that she couldn’t.

They’re trying.

4.

There’s a pack meeting.

Lydia can’t breathe, can’t even think when Scott’s hand is on her shoulder and the smell of the forest is in the air. He says, “Meeting tonight, you’ll be there, right?”

Stiles says, “You wouldn’t want to miss out on the juicy, juicy gossip of those who turn into giant dogs and bay at the mo—okay, sorry Cujo! Kidding! Easy on the teeth.”

Isaac nods in her direction, and she’s frozen until Allison says, “We’ll be there, yeah.”

So they’re there, and there’s 3 couches. Lydia doesn’t know what the material is or what’s happened in this room but she’s okay. Scratches mar the floorboards underneath her feet. The breaths going in and out around her are too loud, and it’s all fine. Allison’s arm is around her shoulder. Peter isn’t in the house. And maybe Jackson isn’t even looking at her but the burst of pain in her right hand when she squeezes it into a fist makes everything better because it proves that she’s alive. She’s fighting.

There’s a pack meeting, and the wolves train. They don’t even notice as Lydia and Allison fall together, pin one another just a little bit too hard against the charcoal of old walls. Their chests rise, fall and push on with the beat of their hands, rough pants of their mouths and the way that they’re not the way they used to be; they’re better. Lydia and Allison don’t notice themselves as their pack falls quiet.

The pack notices them.

5.

“I’m telling you this because,” Stiles looks in pain. His fingers are wrapped tightly around Scott’s wrist and –does Scott look like he’s enjoying that? Lydia’s mouth wrinkles with distaste before she can stop herself, “I used to love you more than the Sun and Earth but now kinda don’t but please don’t be offended because I swear you are still the most goddess-y person I know and you far outshine every last specimen in the -,” He clears his throat, “womanly genre.”

“Category,” Scott slides in – Lydia’s impressed that he’s paying attention. She can’t help but let her mind wander to Allison though, as the boy in front of her continues.

“Yeah, category. I’m telling you this because you’re an amazing person and Allison’s also a pretty cool person despite having the worst relatives in the history, and we,” Scott looks mildly uncomfortable, “definitely we, want you to be happy.”

Does Scott? Does he really?

Lydia doesn’t realize she’s said it out loud until she hears a low, “Yes.”

The barbed curl of jealousy wrapped around her stomach loosens lightly, muscles she didn’t know she had relaxing as she looks up and sees that the color of Scott’s eyes is sincerity. Lydia lets her mask shift slightly as she breathes in lightly from her mouth and nods at the joined hands of the boys in front of her.

“Good, because I want me to be happy too. I deserve that.”

And so does Allison.

And so do they.

 

6.

The way she falls against the floor is familiar. Allison’s hand is wrapped around hers, the knuckles dusted with purple and blue. The low hum of air conditioner mixed with their gasps and the slow pulse of their joined hands against Lydia’s ear is more than she’d expected. They’re in pieces on rubber mats, whatever Lydia and Allison everybody else sees thrown away in the heat of scrabbling arms and kicking legs. There’s sweat creating a path for her thumb to follow against Allison’s neck, and it’s all too easy for Lydia to lean up and speak the words, “It’s okay,” into the other girl’s mouth.

Their hands stay joined, they fight against a wall, with cuts and bruises and whispered apologies that they don’t mean. They care. Lydia can’t teach what isn’t possible.

“I know,” Allison says with her eyes wide open.

 

+

Fingers, bones, the taste of  
blood and  
meanings that I swore I knew

I swore I knew how to  
deal.

But you’re dealing and  
you’re real and

This is better.

I’m better with you and I don’t know why.  
I’m terrified.

You’re the only thing I know the taste of.  
You’re the only thing in my universe,  
now.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Lydia asks Allison to teach her self-defense, now that her life is full of werewolves; sparring becomes an excuse, for one or both of them, to be close to the other.
> 
> For JoeMoe93 on LJ. I'm sorry the Christmas fic swap never happened.


End file.
